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Donald Trump has increased the pressure on the “failing New York Times” and “fake news” CNN by referring to these news outlets and others of their ilk as “enemies of the people”. The President tweeted today:

Seemingly intent on publishing any potentially damaging leak first, AP published an “exclusive” story based on a leaked draft memorandum, AP published a report that the Trump administration was set to employ the National Guard to help deport illegal aliens.

According to the AP report, the Trump Administration was planning on using 100,000 National Guard troops to assist in its deportation efforts. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer immediately noted “That is 100 percent not true. It is false. It is irresponsible to be saying this.” Spicer said.” I don’t know what could potentially be out there, but I know that there is no effort to do what is potentially suggested.”

According to the Daily Beast, a Department of Homeland Security official told them that the draft memorandum that AP cited was “an early, pre-decisional draft, that Kelly never approved it, and that the department as a whole never seriously considered it.”

At a freewheeling press conference today, Donald Trump continued an in-person assault on his media adversaries. During his first solo press conference as President, Donald Trump noted:

“Our nation’s reporters and folks will not tell you the truth. And will not treat the wonderful people of our country with the respect that they deserve. Many of our nation’s reporters and folks will not tell you the truth and will not treat you with the respect you deserve. Much of the media in Washington, D.C., along with New York, Los Angeles in particular, speaks for the special interests and for those profiting off the obviously very, very broken system.”

“The press has become so dishonest that if we don’t talk about it we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people. Tremendous disservice. We have to talk about it. We have to find out what’s going on because the press honestly is out of control.”

Trump also touted his achievements, his approval ratings and referred to a BBC reporter “another beauty”. The highlight of the press conference occurred when Donald Trump took a question from CNN reporter Jim Acosta. When he was President-Elect, Mr. Trump refused to take a question from Mr. Acosta and told him CNN was terrible and “you are fake news“.

Fake News accusations are getting under the skin of main stream media reporters as the moniker begins to stick to them. The latest “fake news” reporter to indicate how sensitive they are to the charge of fake news is CNN’s Chris Cuomo. Chris Cuomo, whose fame as a reporter comes from his infamous lecture that the average person was not allowed to read the Wikileaks; that only he, as part of the “media”, could tell the public what was in them.

Today, Mr. Cuomo, brother of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, had the audacity to state “I see being called fake news as the equivalent of the N word for journalists, the equivalent of calling an Italian any of the ugly words that people have for that ethnicity.”

Mr. Cuomo’s comments are ludicrous. Calling a reporter fake news reflects a charge of lying or unethical reporting. Such a charge is behavior based. Calling someone an ethnic slur is not based on the actions of that person, but rather simply for being a member of an ethnic group. There is no “equivalent” as Mr. Cuomo asserted, other than calling someone an ethnic slur or fake news is an insult.

Mark Dice takes Mr. Cuomo to task here for his odious comparison of “fake news” and the “N Word” here:

Mr. Cuomo later apologized for his remarks that many thought insensitive and others just plain stupid.

According to the Huffington Post, a confrontation between Steve Bannon and John Kelly reported to have occurred by the Washington Post is false. The Washington Post reported that White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon chased down Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly

The Huffington Post spoke to White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on the supposed Bannon/Kelly encounter. “It’s a patently false, made up story,” said Spicer. The Huffington Post noted Spicer’s disatisfaction with the Washington Post story noting that the Washington Post reported did not seek comment from the White House before running the story.

The Washington Post added an editorial note to their story saying that they had not contacted the White House as they should have.

AP Reports that Donald Trump Told Mexican President In Telephone Call That U.S. Would Send Troops To “Stop the Bad Hombres Down There”

According to leaked telephone transcripts of a phone call between President Trump and Mexican Enrique Pena Nieto obtained by AP, Donald Trump threatened his Mexican counterpart with sending US Troops to stop the bad hombres.

AP editorialized regarding the transcript which has not been verified “the excerpt offers a rare and striking look at how the new president is conducting diplomacy behind closed doors. Trump’s remarks suggest he is using the same tough and blunt talk with world leaders that he used to rally crowds on the campaign trail.”

CNN followed up the AP story by speaking to the Mexican foreign minister Luis Videgaray who noted the call between Presidents Trump and Nieto was constructive. Mr. Videgaray also provided a transcript quoting Mr. Trump as saying: “You have some pretty tough hombres in Mexico that you may need help with. We are willing to help with that big-league, but they have be knocked out and you have not done a good job knocking them out.”

The term apparently has been co-opted and used against the Washington Post, NY Times, CNN and other main stream media purveyors of some times fake news for the Washington Post’s liking. Margaret Sullivan, previously a public editor at the New York Times, writing for the Washington Post referenced uses of the term fake news by former Senator Jim DeMint, Info Wars’ Alex Jones and an “arch conservative webstite” (unnamed but linked to Stop the Take Over .org) in her recent column.

For Ms. Sullivan such use by a “tea partier”, a “conspiracy theorist” and an “arch- conservative website”, of the term fake news was enough for her to conclude the term needed to be retired. In the manner of a top PC word police officer, Ms. Sullivan declared that the word fake news needed to removed from the lexicon because it had been co-opted and become removed from its original meaning.

The term “fake news” is not going away. The main stream media weaponized the term fake news and created a Frankenstein. CNN was on the receiving end of a “fake news” truth bomb last week when President- Elect Donald Trump silenced a CNN reporting by calling his organization “fake news”.

The Washington Post has a fake news problem. Fake news is not only competition for the Washington Post, but its own affliction. The Washington Post seem to have difficulty refraining from publishing fake news while criticizing others for publishing it.

The Washington Post entered the “fake news” fray by attempting to debunk Pizzagate. While the Washington Post examined some of the unproven allegations, it did not conclusively determine with factual analysis that Pizzagate was “fake news”. Rather, the Washington Post simply declared it was fake news, rather than thoroughly debunking the story.

Prop or Not Hoax

Things got worse for the Washington Post’s reputation as a “real news” outlet, when it published accusations that a hundred or so alternative media sites were Russian propaganda outlets that disseminated fake news that helped tip the election to Donald Trump. The Washington Post cited a newly created anonymous group as its source, Prop or Not, which itself did not provide any concrete evidence of any Russian connection. The article was roundly criticized not only by some of the web sites wrongly accused as acting on behalf of the Russians, but also by Rolling Stone and the Intercept.

In December, the Washington Post was appointed by Facebook to help it identify fake news coming from fake news outlets, perhaps on the assumption of “takes one to know one”?

Russia’s Hacking of a Vermont Power Grid

The Washington Post’s next brush with fake news occurred in late December and involved their reporting on Russian hacking of a Vermont power grid. The Post published an unverified story that the Russians hacked the Vermont Power Grid. The story turned out to be totally false.

In January, the Washington Post left out key information on the resignation of head of the D.C. National Guard. The Post’s story indicated that “D.C. National Guard, Maj. Gen. Errol R. Schwartz, said Friday that he has been ordered removed from his command” effective immediately upon Donald’s Trump’s inauguration at 12:01pm Friday January 20, 2017. Such a move would make the President Elect appear reckless as the National Guard would be without a general for the period of time after Donald Trump was sworn in.

The Washington Post story left out key information regarding the procedural protocol for the General of the D.C. National Guard who traditionally submits his letter of resignation to the incoming President. The Trump administration had offered General Schwartz the opportunity to keep his post through inauguration, but he declined the offer.

In other words, through purposeful omission of key facts or simply shoddy journalism, the Washington Post published fake news, AGAIN.

The main stream media’s assault on alternative media outlets as “fake news” so far has not been a success. The term “fake news” seems to have been co-opted by alternative media who now in turn label main stream media publishers like the Washington Post as “fake news”. Donald Trump’s characterization of CNN as “fake news” at his press conference last week, may have main stream media outlets ruing the day they decided to fight the competition with the term “fake news”.

According to Rush Limbaugh, the New York Times will no longer use the term “fake news”. Seems the left’s “fake news” campaign to discredit alternative competing media outlets has backfired on them. Charges of “fake news” began soon after the Presidential election was over as an excuse for Hillary Clinton’s defeat.

Alternative media bloggers and you tubers leveled charges of “fake news” back at main stream news outlets and created their own fake news outlet list that included the New York Times, the Washington Post (for peddling the prop or not and Russian hacking of a Vermont power plant fake news stories) and CNN.

But no “fake news” charge was delivered so decisively as when Donald Trump yesterday silenced CNN reporter Dan Acosta by telling him his news organization was terrible and “fake news”.

BOOM!

It can only get worse from here for the main stream media, so the New York Times has chosen to cut its losses and stop using the term fake news.

Perhaps President Trump can call a reporter “racist” at his next news conference?